


Whistle-Crack

by kayliemalinza



Category: Torchwood
Genre: BDSM, D/s, F/M, femmedom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-17
Updated: 2008-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tosh and Ianto normally enjoy the evenings when Tosh teaches him computer maintenance, but the new girl has them both on edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whistle-Crack

**Author's Note:**

> Set vaguely during "Ghost Machine," when Gwen is new.

They are both on edge because of the new girl.

Ianto has a subtle circuit he walks throughout the Hub and today, Gwen, all eyes and shuffled feet, ended up three times in the middle of it. Ianto merely smiled and side-stepped her, perhaps asked if she was getting on or needed any assistance, then continued in his orbit. The interruption was brief, but it rankled. And she was finicky about the coffee.

Tosh got asked too many questions. Gwen is reasonably tech-savvy, but "reasonably" for the average person and "reasonably" for Tosh are miles apart, and Jack seems eager to answer anything Gwen wants. But if it beeped, or flashed, or had a screen, Gwen turned to Tosh if she was at all nearby. Tosh cherishes the opportunity to teach someone correct procedure—Jack has a number of disturbing shortcuts and sloppy hotkey commands—but her latest program was popping up error windows and she wanted to dive, hands sharp, into the deep end of the code. That afternoon, Gwen pulled her constantly to the shallows. No, the surface. No, the concrete edge with dark-wet footprints.

Ianto is better at following Tosh when she swims, sometimes lingering above or back but always watching, taking notes on what he doesn't understand. He chews things over and presents her days later with a perfect breaststroke or eggbeater kick of sysadmin. Tosh and Ianto are lively and open in the conference room on late nights, Tosh's laptop S-cabled to the projector. Jack set up the lessons because he wants Tosh to focus on the bigger stuff, and routine maintenance is not all about the cracking walls, old plumbing, or even backlogged paperwork.

Sometimes Jack leans in the doorway to grin at them, inserting comments that are either helpful or very, very not. Tosh knows Jack likes to watch her show off her skills, and he likes to watch Ianto frown in concentration at the screen, apparently. Tosh doesn't know what's going on there, exactly (except she absolutely does.) One night Jack was there when Ianto froze, bit off three words in succession, then flung at Tosh the most perfect explanation of ad hoc networking that she had ever heard. Jack teased later that Tosh's cry of "Exactly!" was orgasmic. At the time, he gave them both a silent beam that said, "These are my kids, and they are _perfect_."

Jack isn't there tonight; he's providing Gwen with "firearms training" but that isn't why they're out of sorts, not really. Ianto flirts with Jack with one eye looking back over his shoulder, and Toshiko feels like a cat that slinks out from underfoot when Jack's around. He's so _big_ , in voice and body, and Tosh is scared of being swallowed. Gwen is fearless, steeped in touch; she's bigger than her height allows. Tosh and Ianto feel like slipping into the darkness of the corners. They are soft and they are sly; that doesn't mean they are not strong.

The night is not the vesicle of warmth and friendliness they're used to. Tosh is terse in explanations, doubling back on unclear concepts with pointed terminology that does little to elucidate. Ianto calls her on this, interrupts the moment an acronym slips in, begins to question points and procedures before she's explained anything at all. His voice is sniping hard and Tosh is sick of being shushed by witticisms. Ianto's hand is flopped out, palm up as he talks and Tosh has been holding the metal pointer to jab at lines of code and option buttons, and almost without thinking she whips it sharp against the meatiest part of his palm, just beneath the thumb.

It's a wimpy strike (she pulled herself back at the last moment) but Ianto snaps his gaze to her and something's flashing in the eyes.

Tosh feels her shoulders settle back defensively. Her voice is reedy, pushing without force. "You interrupted me," she says. "That's very rude."

Ianto tilts his head a smudgen to the side and says, in perfect character, "I'm sorry, miss. It won't happen again, miss." His mouth is curling up around the edges, and otherwise his face is a blank of perfect innocence. Tosh hates him suddenly the way she hated every boy like him in school, the boys who disrupted maths and made her feel unwanted because she always had the answer.

She is deliberate when she grabs his hand and brings the pointer down again, a _whistle-crack_. She doesn't pull back this time.

Ianto gasps. His palm is pinking in a perfect line and he looks up at her, mouth twitching open in short breaths. The moment spirals out too long and Toshiko feels acutely how her torso arches just below her shoulders, the way her left thigh is cocked out from her body. She is aware of these things because Ianto's eyes are dark and flicking up and down her form, absorbing everything. The fingers of her left hand wrap gently around the tip of the pointer.

"Now, be quiet," she says, not knowing where her voice is coming from, just that she sounds too much like her sixth form teacher and yet with extra layers, something dark and hot and only slightly sure. "Pay attention to the rest of the lesson."

Ianto bites his lip. "Yes, miss," he says, without a trace of sass.

"Good," says Tosh. She marvels at the swivel of her hips when she turns and begins to teach again.

 

Some time later, Jack and Gwen traipse by the conference room on their way up, snickering and murmuring inscrutably.

"You guys doing ok in there?" Jack calls, poking his head through the doorway.

"Just fine, thanks," says Tosh, and smiles.

Ianto, back to the door, says nothing. He rubs his thumb against the soreness of his palm, over and over.


End file.
